Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (born Majel Lee Hudec on February 23, 1932 in Columbus, Ohio) is an American actress and widow of television director/producer/writer Gene Roddenberry.
Majel Barrett played several onscreen roles in the various incarnations of Star Trek, the popular science fiction TV series. She first appeared in Star Trek's initial pilot episode "The Cage" as the USS Enterprise's unnamed First Officer. This was because she was having an affair with Gene Rodenberry, who admitted that he had "a serious case of pillow talk". The network was furious that he would attempt to put this unknown actor in such a prominent role simply because she was his girlfriend. Forced to remove her, he would later lie and claim that the network told him to remove her because they did not want a woman to be in such a high position of authority. Her role was changed to that of Nurse Christine Chapel, and two decades later she was cast as the outrageously determined and iconoclastic Betazoid Ambassador Lwaxana Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation, who also appeared in some episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also provided the voice of the computer for the original Star Trek series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and the Star Trek movies.
She also played the character Dr. Julianne Belman in Earth: Final Conflict, which was also created by Gene Roddenberry. She made a guest appearance in a Babylon 5 episode, as the widow of the Centauri emperor. Most likely to parody her voice work as the computer for the Star Trek series', Majel performed as a guest voice on Family Guy as the voice of Stewies ship (This episode also featured another Star Trek regular, Wallace Shawn as Stewie's unborn brother. Wallace played the recurring role of Grand Nagus Zek in Deep Space Nine.)
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